Bu‘eina

Edna Dalali-Amos

30/07/2006

Final Report

During December 2004 a trial excavation was conducted at Kafr Bu‘eina, situated on the northern slope of Har Tur‘an in the Lower Galilee (Permit No. A-4327*; map ref. NIG 23430/74586; OIG 18430/24586), prior to the construction of a house and in the wake of probe trenches that revealed ancient remains. The excavation, on behalf of the Antiquities Authority, was directed by E. Amos (surveying, drafting, photography and drawing), under the guidance of N. Getzov.

Meager remains were exposed in a single square (37 sq m), including two parallel terrace walls (W3, W4), one meter apart, at the western edge of a soft qirton bedrock terrace (Figs. 1, 2).

Wall 3 (length 1.5 m) was a row of medium-sized stones built next to the western end of the bedrock terrace. The wall was founded on top of a pale red-brown accumulation of natural soil mixed with small limestone pieces. The poorly preserved W4 was built of roughly hewn medium-sized stones with small fieldstones in-between. It survived to a single course high and like W3, was founded on top of a pale red-brown natural soil layer. A line of stones, marked as Wall 2, to the east of W3, was probably part of an installation that did not survive.

A few potsherds from the Roman and Byzantine periods were collected and an intact juglet from the Iron Age (Fig. 3) was found on the bedrock surface.